For glowing skin in a jiffy, eat your fruits & veggies

I falter in getting enough veggies in my diet, but appealing to my vain side is one way to make it much more enticing:

Eating  more fruits and veggies can improve your skin tone and give you more glowing skin in just six weeks, says new research from the University of St. Andrews. This is thanks to the carotenoids (those orange-y red pigments) found in fruits and veg.

Visible results in just six weeks says their findings published in the American Journal for Public Health.

Excuse me for a moment, I need to make a trip to the produce aisle right now.

2 Comments March 9, 2012

Eat more fruits & veg, people!

Us Canadians aren’t doing so well when it comes to eating enough fruits and veggies, y’all.

In a Concordia University (my alma mater, woot woot!) study published in the Nutrition Journal adults aged 30 to 60 are not getting enough in their diets. But as a whole, Quebecers are consuming more f&v than the rest of us (maybe La Belle Province will be known for that now, more than being the only place Pepsi outsells Coke?…Nah, probably not).

(and, hey, I’m from Quebec — but I know I could be eating more roughage…didn’t inherit that, I guess, only the poutine-eating habit).

Other findings? Women eat more fruits and veg than men (5.4 x a day versus 4.5 x), which isn’t too surprising, I don’t think. But here’s an interesting one:

People with a weak social network eat less fruits and veg compared to those who have a strong social network.

What’s that all about? The study doesn’t say. But seems win-win, more friends and socializing and you eat healthier overall going hand in hand? Sounds like a plan.

2 Comments January 12, 2012

A “new” (to me) healthy snack

(Kale chips, Embracing Balance)

Why wait until the new year to kickstart your resolutions when you can start  now?

OK…so this is actually one of the resolutions I made for 2011 — eat more veggies. And while I wouldn’t say I was successful, I did throughout the year add a few more salads and vegetable side dishes to my meals. But chatting this month with a fellow freelancer who is also on the eat-more-veggies track reminded me I still have a long way to go.

(After all, that incredible spinach gratin Chuck Hughes made in his recent Chuckmas Christmas special is not the kind of veggie dish I should have on the regular…although that’s the kind of veg dish I love, you know where the cheese and cream outweighs the vegetables)

Which also reminded me that I have yet to bake up some kale chips.

I love chips + I love kale = I am sure to love kale chips.

And kale’s high in antioxidants, omega 3s, fibre, etc. (ie. these chips will be way healthier than a bag of Ruffles)

I know. I’m a little late to the party (kale chips, so 2008…). Kale chips have actually been on my to-do list for several years now, but I again was reminded of this remaining to-do, this time thanks to the lovely blogger Jaime at Embracing Balance who was recently tweeting about her kale chip experiments, and so kale chipping I will do.

2 Comments December 21, 2011